Pieces
by Jayne Foyer
Summary: Bonzo's been iced. Dink is in Petra's quarters, telling her what happened. Petra keeps saying, "I'm glad he's gone."


Petra Arkanian, Commander of Phoenix Army, was sitting on her bed in her quarters. Dink Meeker sat on the ground, his back pressed against the door. There was silence between them. He had just finished recounting the incident that had gotten Bonzo iced.

"I'm glad he's gone," said Petra stonily.

Dink stared at the ground. "It shouldn't have happened."

"So what? It did."

"Somebody should have _done_ something."

"You heard what his army was doing. They tried."

"Not the kids, the _adults_. We're not supposed to be the ones in control here, Petra."

"We aren't in control. Not in the slightest."

"Yes, we _are_." Dink sighed, his head rolling back to stare at the ceiling. "It's just us, Petra. The thing is, they spend so much time trying to make it look like they're in control to get us afraid enough to be manipulated by them, but they're _lazy_ and they have no idea the kind of hold we have over them." He buried his face in his hands. "You should've seen him. His head was covered in blood, Petra, covered. It was dripping down his back. He knew. He looked at me and I knew he knew what he'd done. Jesus _Christ_, I should've done something. _I _should have said something."

Petra said nothing. Dink sat there, his head hanging between his knees.

Quietly, Dink muttered, "I want to go home."

Petra didn't even look at him. She only leaned back in her bed and said, "Hey, pick a fight with Ender. That'll get you iced. Bonzo's on his way home right now, isn't he?"

"Yeah," said Dink sharply, "in a _box_."

"He's fine," said Petra coldly. "That idiot isn't human enough to die. Not without an exorcism first."

Dink looked up and stared at her. "Petra," he said. "How old was Bonzo? Twelve? Thirteen?"

She said nothing.

"You think you know people so well," he said, and he was starting to tremble. "You don't know anything. You think you're so much better than them. And you're so blind that you actually think we're safe here. I bet you think they're trying to take _care _of us."

"Just shut up, Dink, okay? Just shut up already."

He said nothing, clenching his jaw shut, biting back the words. Petra lay on her bed. There was a long silence between them.

Then Petra said, "It's not fair."

Dink snorted bitterly. "You could say that again."

"Ender's no better than I am."

Dink looked up. "He beat you," he said.

"So did Bonzo," replied Petra.

"Phoenix and Salamander never battled."

"I wasn't talking about in the Battle Room."

Dink just looked at her. "What's going through your head?" he asked. "What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to tell me that I'm better than Ender," she said. "And I want you to walk right up to Graff and tell him that _I _should be the one going to Command School, not that little Launchie."

"You're jealous. Of Ender Wiggin."

She looked at him, daggers in her eyes. "I'm _better_ than him!" she hissed. "What's so difficult to understand about this?"

"You're the one who taught him how to shoot, Petra, you know as well as anyone that-"

"That's the Battle Room, Dink," she said impatiently. "That doesn't count."

He looked at her. "I don't know what you're talking about."

She shook her head. "All I mean," she began, "is that Bonzo's been as much of a bitch to me as to Ender. And to me for a longer time. And now _whose_ fault is it that he's dead?"

Dink stared at her, his mouth hanging half-open.

"Soldiers need to be brutal," she continued, "and everybody knows just how aggressive I can be. But soldiers also need to understand their position and the _appropriate course of action._ And they need to tolerate and persevere. What Ender did was a petty act of revenge and while it was totally necessary and Bonzo completely deserved it, _it makes me the better person_."

"Petra-"

"You know what they're doing, Dink! They're pushing everybody up! They're sending Ender to _Command_! The Buggers are on their way, and they can't waste their time with someone as unreliable as him!"

"Oh, right, because you're so much _less_ unreliable-"

"I'm cruel," she said, "but consistently so. Ender Wiggin swings back and forth on the pendulum of kind and adorable and pitiless and vicious. I'm the better soldier. I'm the better commander. They're so blind. It's like they think the scores and the ranks are all that matters."

Petra stopped herself suddenly. Dink said nothing for a moment. Petra started to cry.

"I'm glad he's gone," she repeated. "I'm glad he's gone."

Dink didn't say anything. He just looked at the ground. "Me too," he finally said, and then he stood up and walked over to her and sat on the bed next to her, and he put an arm around her shoulders and then she put an arm around his chest and for just a few minutes, they sat there silently, falling to pieces.

* * *

><p><strong>PetraDink otp forever**

**No jk. I ship Petra/Peter harder than I ship Petra/Dink. And I probably ship Petra/Bean the hardest. Probably. **

**I also ship Petra/Bonzo. jk jk jk not really. But kind of. I think...well, I think that they had a relationship of sorts. Not romantically, but it was a compromise and they made each other stronger by hating so much. It's a masochistic type of thing, you know? This isn't to say he ever liked her or she ever liked him, but they knew each other. They weren't even friends but Bonzo was a huge part of Petra's life. Make sense?**

**Anyway, this is partially inspired by that moment in _Ender's Shadow_ where Bean tells them that the battle was real and Petra leans against the wall and starts crying and Dink reaches out to comfort her. That moment always gets me.**


End file.
